You’ve heard the axiom “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Well if that’s true, a two-minute video is worth millions.
If you have done much posting on Facebook, you probably know that a post with only text gets limited likes. Add a picture and there’s more interaction, but add a video, and the engagement exponentially increases.
This is partly because we are visual learners, but it’s even more than that.
A good commercial film is filled with carefully crafted texts that help your audience get to know who you are, what you do, and even more importantly, why you do it and how you make a difference in the world.
In a well-produced video, we get to meet the workers, doing their jobs and showing us all that is impressive both inside and outside the company. Reputable film production companies will visually dazzle the audience with stimulating camera angles, thought-provoking movement, cinematic lighting, optimum filming locations, artistic use of colors, and a skilled director that will know how to make everything visually astonishing.
Also, don’t underestimate the emotion that the soundtrack evokes while we watch the video. Can you imagine watching your favorite movie without it?
Music makes an immediate connection with our emotions. Because videos can inform, entertain, and engage us, they have the capacity to engage multiple learning centers of the brain simultaneously. Neurologists tell us this exponentially increases memory recall. As businesses, we want to be first in mind with our current and potential customers. Great videos communicate your company’s message verbally, visually, emotionally and simultaneously memorable.
To really extend the life of financial investments in corporate videos, make sure your film tells a worthy story. Today’s video resolution may be outdated in three years, but a great story is timeless.
As Lisa Cron’s book on storytelling so convincingly teaches us, our brains are neurologically wired for a good story. Facts and figures are dry and dull but tell the story of a heroine who has to overcome obstacles, ultimately somehow winning, and we are hooked. Weaving all your business’ crucial information into a noteworthy story arc will delight and inform your audience and extend its shelf life.
Society is historically based on compelling narratives. Nations, religions, families, products, sports, art, and businesses all sit atop underlying great stories. And storytelling is quintessential to the human experience.
Ancient humans sat around campfires in the evening and told stories that helped them make sense of the life and the cosmos. Today, we meet a potential client for coffee, and what’s the first thing we do? We relay our life story. Why? Because stories provide a stimulating way to learn about the other, but more importantly, they also help us make an emotional connection that builds trust. And we tend to do business with those we know, like and trust.
There are also some very measurable reasons for telling your company’s story through video. Google owns YouTube and searches first for video content. Google also prefers sending traffic to websites with lots of video content. Videos also drive sales.
LSA white paper surveyed 2,000 consumers and found that 44 percent of buyers viewed an online video while searching for local products and services. Fifty-three percent of viewers contacted the business after watching a video, 51 percent visited the business website, and 33 percent visited the store. Seventy-one percent of viewers ended up making a purchase.
Videos are also useful tools for your sales team. They provide concise, creative ways to introduce potential clients to the company. Sales meetings get exponentially shorter, so putting a two-minute video into the hands of potential clients ensures that they get a consistent, brand approved introduction to your organization each meeting. Additionally, the very act of producing a corporate video forces both the marketing team and the production team to make the complexities of your company short and simple.
As Donald Miller repeatedly points out in “Building a Brand Story,” our brains search for clarity and discard needless complexity. Videos are the perfect medium for clarity. Leave all the endless details of your company to web copy.
Today’s viewing audiences have short attention spans. In a two-minute video, your message will be clear and focused.
Videos and social media make perfect partners. Posting commercial films on social media gets your company’s message directly to the audience on the platforms they are already engaged in: smart phones.
Rather than depending only on Google to direct people to your website, you are proactively placing your stories into users’ news feeds. In 2018, more than 75 percent of worldwide videos were viewed on cellphones.
Short cuts of your videos, 30 to 60 seconds, are perfect for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter posts. Social media audiences want regular, fresh content so more succinct videos are infinitely better than one long play.
Volume trumps length.
If you put some money behind your video posts, you have the advantage of controlling who sees your video. Most social media platforms allow a laser focus of the audiences you want to view your film: specific cities, ethnicities, ages, income ranges, neighborhoods, education, interests, and industries.
As the popular marketing adage states: get your message to the right people, with the right message, at the right time, on the right platform.
A well-produced video will visually represent your brand, quality, and your values. It should bring you the respect and attention you deserve and establish you as an industry leader.
A well-produced commercial film from a smaller company can appear more impressive than a poor video from a large company. The only thing worse than a lack of videos on a company website is a bad video. A poorly produced video may contradict all the words on your website and that’s a problem.
People remember video content 80 percent more than textual content. Investing in a quality commercial film will pay large dividends.
One final note: when you invest money in video, pay a bit extra for closed captions to be added to the film. Google doesn’t currently search audio content but adding the cc texts makes all the words of your video searchable and this will greatly increase your Google presence.
Authored by Dr. David K. Bray, President of Revworx video production partner Barking Squirrel Media.
